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1 • Broken images (by Eric on 2010-07-12 09:40:45 GMT from Ireland)
Anyone else noticing the broken image src addresses for the past few weeks? We're missing out on the pretty screenshots! :-) Firefox 3.6.6
2 • RE: 1 Broken images (by ladislav on 2010-07-12 09:45:00 GMT from Taiwan)
Those who can't see any images please try disabling your ad-blocking browser plugin on this site and see if it helps.
3 • Ad-blocking (by silent on 2010-07-12 10:12:43 GMT from France)
Unfortunately Adblock Plus is sometimes too strict. But it is very useful otherwise, so may be there is a way to include the images in a different way, as most sites are OK.
4 • Broken images (by arthr on 2010-07-12 10:14:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
RE: 1 & 2 Yes, I had this problem some weeks ago and found, as ladislav suggests, that disabling Adblock plus for the Distrowatch site brought them all back - Hooray!
5 • Disabling Adblock Plus (by silent on 2010-07-12 10:25:00 GMT from France)
Yes, sure, one can disable Adblock Plus for Distrowatch, but think about people who are not yet experts, they are just interested in Linux and if images do not show, they will not launch an investigation, just navigate away. This is not a proactive, beginner-friendly solution, kind of confirming the "geek" image of Linux.
6 • Adblock Plus (by Ambleston Dack on 2010-07-12 10:34:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
I figured this out a few weeks ago when no images was present on Distrowatch. I thought it was just my setup and so didn't think to post here about it, its only when I did a fresh install of Firefox on a PC and happened to go to distrowatch and saw that the images were there. When I put ABP on it, bang, images gone.
I agree with silent, this is quite off putting for the novice who might wander here.
7 • Adblock Plus (by hob4bit on 2010-07-12 10:51:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, the problem is the URL for adverts at Distrowatch keep changing so Adblock Plus blocks non adverts as well. These changes at Dsitrowatch is done on purpose to try and beat it.
8 • Re: 5, Adblocking (by silent on 2010-07-12 10:54:33 GMT from France)
But I was wrong. It is strange, but Distrowatch is explicitly included in Easylist filters:"||distrowatch.com/images/$background,image","||distrowatch.com^*.png|$background,image". So if one subscribes to Easylist, Distrowatch images are blocked. May be one could contact them and ask them to remove Distrowatch from their filter?
9 • RE: 5 Disabling Adblock Plus (by ladislav on 2010-07-12 10:54:45 GMT from Taiwan)
I understand what you are saying, but remember that Firefox doesn't come with an ad-blocking plugin pre-installed. If these "people who are not yet experts" can make a conscious decision to install it, they also need to take the responsibility for the consequences.
Besides, AdBlock is not a problem. The problem is the various blacklists that people blindly enable without learning about them first (and for those visitors I have no sympathy). I am an AdBlock user too, but I never install any pre-configured blacklists. If the ads on the site annoy you too much then feel free to disable them manually, but relying on these third-party (and often error-prone) blacklists is just plain silly. I can decide for myself how I want to see the web - I don't need any nutheads who spend their weekends hunting down banners on the Internet to tell me what I should and what I shouldn't see on a web page, thank you very much.
10 • Adblock Plus (by hob4bit on 2010-07-12 10:59:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
I also do not use any pre-configured blacklists... I keep my adblock plus filter list secret and only share with very close friends. This is to avoid sites discovering them and working around them. The Easylist filter for Distrowatch is silly by blocking so much.
11 • Salix OS (by Burt on 2010-07-12 11:14:28 GMT from Netherlands)
While you lot squabble about an ad blocker i'd just like to state my support for Salix LXDE.
Any one looking for a an easy to install, light and just works distro with that beatiful Slackware base and LXDE need look no further. IMO this is the best Slack derivative yet with a friendly and supportive albeit small community. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.
12 • RE: 7 Adblock Plus (by ladislav on 2010-07-12 11:16:32 GMT from Taiwan)
These changes at Dsitrowatch is done on purpose to try and beat it.
Does that surprise you? DistroWatch is a commercial web site that makes money by selling advertising space. I do have responsibility towards those who support the site and I'll do my best to make sure that their messages are showing as intended.
Having said that, I accept that for many the ads are annoying and want to have them disabled. The best way, in my view, would be to ignore these blacklists and disable the ads manually on the web site. Unfortunately, as the blacklist maintainers keep targetting this web site, they leave me no choice but to work around their filters. This is a loss-loss-loss situation. Loss for the blacklist maintainer who has to work hard to keep the filter up-to-date, loss for the web site maintainer who has to update the HTML code to work around the filters, and loss for the visitors who can only watch the battle helplessly.
13 • Adblock (by Omari on 2010-07-12 11:20:09 GMT from United States)
Thanks for pointing out the filters; I had been using the Easylist for some time and never really bothered to see that it does have some very broad rules in it. I removed the list.
I am getting to the point anyway where I just won't visit sites if their ads are too annoying. My work computer has an IE that I can't touch, and there are several websites I just won't go to because they serve too many pop-under ads. Distrowatch's ads aren't too annoying anyway, and besides, the site is free :)
I did pay for an Android app to turn off the ads in it; I think this is a fair exchange and I wonder if I would do the same for websites.
14 • Adblock (by megadriver on 2010-07-12 11:47:29 GMT from Spain)
This is what I do: I have DistroWatch whitelisted on AdBlock Plus, and blacklisted on YesScript. This way I can see the pretty pictures and the "good" ads (the familiar ones "native" to DistroWatch), while getting rid of the "bad" ones (the random Google stuff).
15 • clean install vrs upgrade (by Bill on 2010-07-12 12:07:09 GMT from United States)
Unless Linux distro's can provide easy to use and working version upgrades Linux will never never gain market share - to many people won't take the time and effort to dl and reconfigure there systems including remembering which packages/apps they need. As to Win 7 not being able to be up'ed from XP consider the number of years between the 2 releases.
Question - I was told (iirc) that doing a clean install and then copying over the old /etc might cause problems if newer app versions had different config layouts.
I've been lucky in my upgrades have usually worked (usually use the upgrade from dvd, though this month did an online updgrade) but I usually do have an issue or 2 especially when libs are renamed (ex mysql-community instead of msql)
16 • MeeGoo (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-12 12:11:21 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thanks for the interesting feature story, refreshingly different from our usual reviews. I was thinking about going to aKademy 2010 but time flies and here it's already over! Finland's got the nature and the peace and quiet to relax, good choice.
MeeGo certainly sounds good too. I'm looking forward to using it on my phone one day. Haven't fallen to Apple's lure yet.
Have a good week everybody.
17 • RE:15, Linux already has a large market share. (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-07-12 12:37:41 GMT from United States)
"Unless Linux distro's can provide easy to use and working version upgrades Linux will never never gain market share -"
The "gain market share" phrase is really overplayed by many. Linux already has a large market share in the server world and as we have seen in DistroWatch Weekly also in the mobile market. Let's not forget all the embedded devices that the world uses. As far as desktop computing goes we shouldn't worry at all about market share. MS will control that for a long time to come so it shouldn't concern us.
On the subject of upgrades I don't have many problems with upgrades. I do use a LTS version but I still can have the latest and greatest running if I want it. ( I customize my software sources list quite a bit) Also I have never seen an MS Windows upgrade to a new version. I have reinstalled without formating but you will have tons of problems going that route. Most people don't do that anyway with an MS system so it's kinda irrelevant.
A good DistroWatch Weekly. Thanks.
18 • mandriva (by petitbob on 2010-07-12 12:46:15 GMT from France)
Russia's NGI Fund Buys Stake in Software Maker Mandriva.
itś here : http://experiencelinuxienne.blogspot.com/2010/07/un-fond-russe-entre-au-capital-de.html
@+ petitbob
19 • re:17 (by Bill on 2010-07-12 12:52:19 GMT from United States)
I stand corrected, I should have stated "desktop market share" and it's not over rated if you're a desktop user and want 3rd parties to develop and support apps for the desktop (which I do).
20 • referer (by j on 2010-07-12 12:59:08 GMT from United States)
the only thing that makes the images disappear is when you set your referer to 0 in firefox "send.referer.header" or if a program makes this change for you.
yes, i know it's spelled referrer
21 • Ref#11 :) (by Verndog on 2010-07-12 13:21:45 GMT from United States)
"While you lot squabble about an ad blocker ..." Amazing how personalities enter into the fray. I thought this comment section was for distros!
Regarding the "Upgrading without the pain". Using Ubuntu, if I use manual install and DO NOT format the lone partition, my /home folder and all its files are left intact. I do clone of that partition before hand. Just to be sure, but it has never failed!
22 • Clean Install vs. Upgrade (by Sitwon on 2010-07-12 13:27:41 GMT from United States)
The advice to do a "clean install" seems questionable to me. The arguments against "upgrading in place" that the author puts forth imply a mistrust of the package manager. Any package manager worth it's salt (even Slackware's pkgtools) can non-destructively handle changes to your /etc configs.
Advising people to do a clean-install every X months sound eerily familiar to Windows users who constantly re-install as a way to clean viruses and maintain performance. It's superstitious mumbo-jumbo and any half-decent sysadmin would just laugh at such a silly and futile waste of man hours.
23 • Clean install vs Upgrade (by hob4bit on 2010-07-12 13:41:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
I always do a clean instead. This is for Linux and Windows. I use three primary partitions for OS.
sda1 Windows XP
sda2 Ubuntu 10.04
sda3 Ubuntu 9.10
I always have two Linux distros installed. The stable version and the testing version. I do not like upgrading something that is stable and works to some newer version that may or may not work.
Once the new testing version works I switch the new testing partition as current. The old current becoems old and then recycled as the new testing partition.
Actually I will be sticking with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Any messing about I will use VMware Player 3.1.0. I also use Puppy Linux 5.0.1 remastered with Firefox 3.6.6, Java 1.6u20, Python 2.6.5 and Flash 10.1 on aUSB pen (235MB) as a live distro.
24 • Upgrade or Clean install (by vw72 on 2010-07-12 13:50:00 GMT from United States)
Very good article, however I would refrain from the second item in the summary regarding backing up and then copying back the /etc directory after a clean install. Doing so may bork the system as newer packages may have made significant changes to the information they expect in their configuration files in /etc (take going from grub to grub2 by ubuntu, for example).
A better suggestion would be to keep note of configuration files manually updated and then prior to the install, back up these files (or all of /etc) and post install, reapply the changes to the new configuration files.
25 • Re:15 (by octathlon on 2010-07-12 13:55:13 GMT from United States)
"Unless Linux distro's can provide easy to use and working version upgrades Linux will never never gain market share -"
Forget about adblockers, I want a blocker that blocks all this kind of thing. "[Unless|Until] Linux does X, [it won't gain market share | I won't switch from Windows | it isn't ready for the desktop] Aaaaargh.
26 • Upgrade or Clean Install (by ProfessorTomoe on 2010-07-12 14:12:18 GMT from United States)
It's a bit surprising that rolling release distros like Arch Linux weren't mentioned in the article. The Arch release model handles upgrades quite well, as long as you keep up with them somewhat regularly and don't put them off for 3-4 months.
27 • RE:19, Fair Enough (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-07-12 14:32:43 GMT from United States)
"it's not over rated if you're a desktop user and want 3rd parties to develop and support apps for the desktop (which I do)."
Fair enough Bill. That is your opinion and a lot of people do want 3rd party proprietary applications. I respect that but at the same time I (myself) do think that it is overrated. I believe we do just fine with the applications we have also. I am a desktop user and there is nothing I need to do in MS Windows that I cannot do with Linux, but again this is only my experience and my opinion.
Thanks.
28 • Upgrades and things.. (by davemc on 2010-07-12 14:33:39 GMT from United States)
#26 - I think the article was specifically referring to distro's that do not use the rolling release method. Afterall, you don't need to do upgrades with a rolling release model.
Good advice about the /home and it applies for any Distro out there, including rolling release types. It still kind of surprises me that Ubuntu does not set defaults to a separate home partition on a base install, and last I checked, neither does Fedora. You have to go into the manual/advanced settings in order to do that during the partitioning sequences. Having a separate home partition should definitely be considered a standard base for all installs, and all base installers (Ubiquity, Anaconda, etc..) should automatically check for a preexisting /home and default to that and include migration tools to pull in things like emails, bookmarks, etc...
29 • BSD (by Tom on 2010-07-12 14:34:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
WoooHooo, it's great to see that the BSD Mag has lifted itself out of dire straits with help from a few people here. Good work whoever helped with that :)
With the BSD releases on the front pages of DW over the last few months it seems that BSD is possibly becoming more accessible with a gui desktop right from the get-go. Surely someone is going to nudge me in a moment as i must be dreaming.
It is also good to hear that there are now easily identifiable choices for mobile devices. Are we beginning to see an opportunity for people to dual-boot or install a different OS from the one given?
Regards from
Tom :)
30 • upgrading painlessly (by Tom on 2010-07-12 14:57:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi again :)
I tend to find it easier to test-drive a newer release by trying it as a LiveCd first. Since i am really paranoid i tend to then try installing it to a small space on my hard-drive to see how it works with my ati card. After a bit of experimentation i then go for a proper install to that same space and this time allow it to use the /home partition. Even a heavy distro like Ubuntu only uses about 15-20Gb as a standard install and only needs 5Gb when using a shared /home. So, i tend to have 1 stable install easily accessible in my multi-boot and 1 experimental or newer install, just leap-frogging the next year/6months. So, being lazy wastes me (20Gb-5Gb)x2partitions = 30Gb on a 1Tb drive. I can still remember scrabbling around with 10Gb drives and it feels great to have so much free-space/wasted-space that could easily be used if i ever need to.
I think the crucial part is testing as a LiveCd first although i have noticed a tendancy for hard-drive installs to throw an unexpected curved-ball into the mix occasionally
Regards from
Tom :)
31 • Comments are not entering (by meanpt on 2010-07-12 15:25:10 GMT from Portugal)
Hi to all.
I do experience some problems with comments not entering. Is this a problem only affecting me?
Regards,
Mean
32 • Forget the comments problem (by meanpt on 2010-07-12 15:26:52 GMT from Portugal)
... I believe I know what happened. No problem.
33 • ... (by Leroy on 2010-07-12 15:32:07 GMT from Serbia)
I'm looking at the Madriva page on this website, it says something right impressive:
"Desktop: AfterStep, Blackbox, Fluxbox, GNOME, IceWM, KDE, LXDE, Openbox, WMaker, Xfce"
On Mandriva's download page, however, it says the distro comes in KDE and Gnome. Now. If this list above means all these DEs and WMs can be installed by the user at some point, fair enough, but shouldn't then every distro have the same list on their page?
All I'm saying, it's a little misleading, that's all.
Otherwise, I appreciate the "to clean install or not to clean install" bit. I clean install and I find the arguments given in the article in favor of this to be sane. I hope nobody refers to the practice as "too Redmondian" :), and, I agree in particular that the best thing to do may be to stop using 6-month release cycle OS's, cos, frankly, that's some crazy pace.
And my two eurocents on the whole "ad controversy"... It's really nice and refreshing how unobtrusive the ads are on this website compared to many others. And this business is such, you either have ads or you charge subscription... or you go out of business.
And #25, you're just being flamed. Don't rise to the bait :)
34 • ... did you already had this feeling of not knowing ... (by meanpt on 2010-07-12 15:42:32 GMT from Portugal)
... what desktop you are using? I kow (do I?) there is a difference between a window manager and a desktop. Some times I have an openbox window manager running under what I'm told to be an LXDE desktop ... but then I may read a distro as using openbox/kde, openbox/gnome ... and so on, and I start thinking what do they mean ... is it a window manager running under those desktops (what for, if each one of them has its own windown manager?), or is it an openbox made to look any of those? Looking at Unity 2010.1 I can't understand what desktop is running and when I try to change it in "session", there it is the openbox/kde ... or is it a cocktail of components?
35 • Openbox (by davemc on 2010-07-12 16:44:51 GMT from United States)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openbox
36 • networkmonitor (by Jairo Mayorga on 2010-07-12 17:25:17 GMT from Colombia)
Comment deleted (spam).
37 • Upgrading without pain. (by Didier Spaier on 2010-07-12 17:37:08 GMT from France)
I prefer not to keep a separate partition for /home, but make regular backups via rsync.
Anyhow, *don't forget to backup /var as well*, especially if you have some important databases in /var/lib, noticeably /var/lib/mysql.
38 • Re: #33 (by kilgoretrout on 2010-07-12 17:38:35 GMT from United States)
You have to download the "Free" DVD version which includes all the listed desktops but no non-free software. You can then select at installation which desktop(s) you want installed. The Gnome and KDE versions you are referring to are in the "Mandriva One" series which are livecds that you can do an installation from and which include some non-free software, eg nvidia and ati proprietary drivers. Space is limited on a livecd compared to the DVD and you just can't include all those desktops on one cd. That's why you have separate livecds for gnome and kde; there's not enough room to fit them both on one cd.
39 • #38 (by Leroy on 2010-07-12 17:45:49 GMT from Serbia)
Thanks for that! My mistake then I didn't explore the Mandriva website properly. Apologies.
40 • @ 22 (by blah on 2010-07-12 17:49:58 GMT from United States)
It's superstitious mumbo-jumbo and any half-decent sysadmin would just laugh at such a silly and futile waste of man hours.
I think a decent sysadmin would laugh at the suggestion of CentOS which is getting flakier as time goes on. RHEL has no such issue, but *gasp* you have to pay for it!
They would have just disregarded the idea of a reinstall to upgrade as coming from someone that uses Fedora or Ubuntu religiously where you almost have to reinstall because of the lack of upgrade path for any application that isn't officially supported.
41 • @ 40 (by JMiahMan on 2010-07-12 18:08:30 GMT from United States)
I am a "Real" Linux System Admin that works for a "Real" Company and I am paid what I am paid because I am more then a "half decent" system Admin. Knowing how packaging systems work ie. RPM and being a packager myself. You come to the realization that sometimes when updating packages files get left behind, upgrade or not upgrade as they should depending on what's in the spec file of the rpm and the goals of the packager.. ie do I want to overwrite the kdmrc file everytime the user installs the kdm package? Most likely. However a clean install makes sure all the configuration files are default. Sometimes depending on the amount of changes on a system and the users it might be an easier route to see if a "clean install" exhibits the same behavior and when the crap hits the fan and the reason why isn't as important as just getting the server up it might be easier to just do a new clean install. Time is money and if a clean install works instead of spending hours to find out what update screwed what config file, then I'm going to be more apt to start with something clean to at least troubleshoot, I do believe science calls that a "control". So no I don't laugh when someone suggests trying a "clean install" for some that might be a quickest way to a solution.
42 • Cheers! Mandriva 2010 Spring (by Antoine on 2010-07-12 18:32:49 GMT from Brazil)
Just to say: Mandriva impressed me. Stable, fast and professional-looking (using KDE in Free Edition). Never expected this after so many bad news.
43 • @11 • Salix OS (by Burt on 2010-07-12 11:14:28 GMT from Netherlands) (by meanpt on 2010-07-12 19:33:56 GMT from Portugal)
"While you lot squabble about an ad blocker i'd just like to state my support for Salix LXDE."
Amen! Salix LXDE and Unity made my last week's crop a good one :)
44 • Disable AdBlock only for Distrowatch (by kiwisoup on 2010-07-12 20:42:06 GMT from United States)
Go into AdBlock Plus Preferences and select Edit then Find...
Search for Distrowatch and uncheck the box or delete the entries.
Not that hard!
45 • RE: 34 - 41 (by Landor on 2010-07-12 20:43:23 GMT from Canada)
#34
Gnome and KDE both have their own default Window Manager, they also have the ability to run other "compliant" Window Managers as well. That's why you're seeing options to select either DE with another Window Manager that's installed on the system. The differences are basically in aesthetics, functionality, and resources.
#41
I don't know if I can agree completely with what you're saying, partly because you sort've skipped off on a different topic. You discussed upgrading, but also talked about a system being borked by an update (unless you meant upgrade instead of update, but then you'd be advocating doing the upgrade then a fresh install to fix it, which kind of negates your whole discussion).
In a deployment scenario for a company my understanding is upgrades/new installs are only done when completely necessary. Also, if a system is borked by an update then any admin worth their salt should easily understand what updated and quickly problem solve the offending files. But on that note too, an admin should and usually does understand that any *nix based system is simply files and are placed in a very specific order (thank the stars for building an intelligent file based hierarchical system) which means it all can be fixed manually and quickly (for the most part) without the need for a reinstall. That's one of the boons of running a *nix based system and one point that needs to be taught to more people, something's broken on your system or you don't like it? Fix it or remove it, it's here and here, or here. That's all a moot point though since again, any admin worth their weight in salt will have a complete back-up ready to go at a moment's notice, especially one done prior to any updates.
----
I guess a lot of the people here must be using Windows or something. I've never installed any adblock stuff or blocked ads at all manually. I just run a standard install of Firefox and don't see scores of pop-ups or extremely intrusive ads from basically anywhere.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
46 • upgrade vs clean install (by merlin on 2010-07-12 20:56:57 GMT from Canada)
For Debian based distros, there is the deborphan package which has a cli app called orphaner, will help clear out some of the old useless libraries, etc. that apt sometimes leaves behind. That may give you some piece of mind when upgrading to newer packages.
I think the clean install every 6 months is a bit much. Using that philosophy, why not do a clean install every time there's a security update to your distro!
Here's a thought...try upgrading and see if your distro works before scrapping it for a clean install. And always read the release notes to see if there's any issues that may affect you. Sometimes they actually document upgrade issues and you may save yourself some time!
Of course there are good reasons for the clean install - it's a very convenient time to upgrade or switch file systems, add a new hard drive, upgrade cpu, change computer, scratch your clean install itch, etc.
47 • Impressed by Mandriva (by BudjaT on 2010-07-12 21:42:33 GMT from Slovenia)
Ofter checking out many other new Linux distributions during the past few weeks I'm positively surprised by the new Mandriva 2010 Spring. I've been testing the 64-bit One edition with KDE and it's one of the rare that just runs without any problems, It even detected all my hardware without any fuss, which no other distro managed on my picky laptop. I'd say this is currently the best distribuition for people new to Linux. Now I have to watch the videos from KDE Akademy conference, since it looks a lot of extremely interesting keynotes and talks happened there.
48 • re:44 • Disable AdBlock only for Distrowatch (by Anonymous on 2010-07-12 21:47:45 GMT from Canada)
It's actually even easier than that!
When visiting distrowhatch, Right click on Adblock Plus icon and check "Disable on distrowatch.com". This site serves well, so I don't see why Ladislav shouldn't make money from it.
49 • deborphan and clean installs (#46 by merlin) (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-12 22:07:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Careful with deborphan though, it's looking for libraries not needed by or registered with any other programs and then deems them useless. Unfortunately this always meant for me multimedia codecs listed, libdvdread, libdvdcss and such. So you have to know what the libraries it offers to remove are doing and what you want to keep, or you find yourself suddenly wondering why that DVD isn't playing any more.
Unless that can be changed in a config, but this is the default behaviour.
Didn't know we have to reinstall after upgrading the cpu, or mobo :) Even that other OS will still work after changing a few drivers. But I know you're only half serious.
50 • @1 Adblock Plus and Distrowatch... (by Bryan Channell on 2010-07-12 22:44:38 GMT from United States)
I found that by changing my filter subscription for Adblock Plus from Easylist over to Fanboy's List... that the problem was solved...
Using the Easylist filters blocked the images on Distrowatch, but Fanboys filter list does not...
51 • @38 Mandriva One (by subg on 2010-07-12 22:59:40 GMT from Canada)
Yes, the Live CD version with Gnome may be somewhat cramped - eg, no drivers for any of the three wireless adapters tried - and perhaps not the best way to try Mandriva. CDs took about 6 minutes to boot each time (complete with serious license agreement to accept), guessed the newish Thinkpad's resolution wrong, and lost the network connection setup nearly every suspend. Generally nice tools and refinement once up and running, though. Better to install to try, perhaps.
52 • Redo Backup and Recovery (by waja on 2010-07-12 23:42:42 GMT from Malaysia)
Redo Backup and Recovery look good, easy to use.
53 • AdBlock (by Anonymous on 2010-07-13 01:12:13 GMT from United States)
Never used it.
Although I do use NoScript.
It has successfully stopped all those moving jiggling annoying ads for many years.
I, like many others see it as a firewall for FireFox.
And here looking at DistroWatch I still see the images and ads, no problem.
Distracting ads are the problem, including large slow loading ones.
If they don't move or cover up the text that I am trying to read, then they are O.K.
DistroWatch is A.O.K. since using fully-on NoScript works good here.
Sites which rely on heavy scripting usually don't have much to add or say, usually just blinky things to attract hits.
Thanks ladislav !
54 • Thanks for your perspective, ladislav. (by jake on 2010-07-13 03:29:46 GMT from United States)
Me, personally, I block adverts wherever possible, using a personal block list. I have a semi-eidetic memory, once I've seen (heard) an advert, I've seen (heard) it. I don't need to see (hear) it again ... fact is, once I see an ad once, I know where to find it again. Sticking it into my face yet again is, to me, an insult, and makes me less (and less (and less (and less (and less ... )))) likely to purchase the product being pushed.
I don't watch television, I don't subscribe to newspapers/magazines, and I have a button on the dash of the cars that turns off the speakers for 110 seconds when I'm listening to baseball games when I'm on the road.
Advertising is so pervasive, and so annoying, that I've taken to carrying a "universal remote" to kill the sound on the monitors that have invaded my local grocery stores ... Trust me, advertisers, I don't need to hear RachelFuckingRay tell me yet again how to dry out pork when I'm trying to convince the butcher that the unknown "mystery cut" of meat that he's trying to flog as "chain meat" or "flat iron steak" really isn't what he seems to think it is ... Or worse, the TV in the veggie department blaring some moronic so-called "green-grocer" suggesting that storing tomatos in the freezer[1] is a good way to "preserve summer's freshness" Sometimes, after muting these TVs, it's blissfully quiet for a couple weeks, until the store's management learns to turn the sound back on ...
Advertising probably has it's place on this dampish rock, but the Marketers of this world are really going out of their way to push product in as annoying a way as possible ... and last I heard, annoying your potential clients isn't exactly a good way to make sales.
Sorry. I feel better now :-)
[1] Never allow tomatos to drop below 43 degrees when off the vine, unless you cook them first. It completely kills the flavo(u)r when you refigerate them ...
55 • Evony Ads (by hardAtWork on 2010-07-13 04:30:50 GMT from Japan)
I too agree with those saying that Ladislav absolutely deserves to make some money of the site. And the only reason I started blocking ads was that I really hate when tech sites show distasteful (at least that is my official opinion while toiling at the bit factory) ads like those of Evony.
Unfortunately I could not find a way to block only the Evony ads so, it all had to go. I would recommend Ladislav to revisit the choice of advertisers. But as said, if Evony and the likes serves the purpose of this site the best, then so be it. ( But I will choose not to load those bits)
56 • @54 and all others annoyed by ads (by merlin on 2010-07-13 05:01:19 GMT from Canada)
The thing that really ticks me off are those annoying website surveys that popup, usually when I'm in the middle of filling in a search query, distracting my train of thought and forcing me to reach for the mouse to click "NO" again, just like I did the other 9 times I visited your %&^# website. Trust me marketing department, you don't want my opinion.
57 • tmp (by Toran Korshnah on 2010-07-13 05:18:18 GMT from Belgium)
Hi, DistroWatch,
In one of my previuos installs I used 500MB for my tmp. The 500MB tmp partition got soon full, resulting in a crash of my SuSE 10.2. I learned later the tmp partition can be cleaned during start up using Yast
But now my question, it looks to me the other distros do not really take care of the cleaning of the tmp partition. So I suspect each distro to crash eventually in time.
Not SuSE, if SuSE is well configured manually.
So, is SuSE the only one who sees this crash danger, or am I wrong?
58 • @55 (by megadriver on 2010-07-13 07:50:30 GMT from Spain)
Those ads are usually the "evil" work of Google AdSense. Just disable Javascript for http://distrowatch.com and/or any other site with this problem. If using Firefox, there are extensions like NoScript (whitelist based) or YesScript (blacklist based) for that purpose. If using Opera, you can enable/disable Javascript on a per site basis.
Alternatively, as already suggested above, you can use AdBlock Plus without any filter subscription and build your own, manually blocking just the ads that you find annoying/offensive.
Also, as already suggested above, Fanboy's list is a bit less "agressive" than EasyList, so it leaves the "good" ads from DistroWatch (and the rest of the pictures) alone. And there's an Opera version, too!
59 • RE:Mandriva One and a question to Jake (by Eddie Wilson on 2010-07-13 12:16:10 GMT from United States)
I've looked on their website and noticed that there was no 64 bit version of Mandriva One. Is that correct? Also I noticed that Mandriva Free does have a 64 bit version. Does anybody have any idea why it is setup that way?
@Jake
"Advertising is so pervasive, and so annoying, that I've taken to carrying a "universal remote" to kill the sound on the monitors that have invaded my local grocery stores ...after muting these TVs, it's blissfully quiet for a couple weeks, until the store's management learns to turn the sound back on ... "
Jake I've just got to ask, "Are you taking your medication properly?" Also does your remote work online? ;)
60 • @59 (by jake on 2010-07-13 12:45:48 GMT from United States)
""Are you taking your medication properly?""
Heck, yes! Big, deep lungfuls of Sonoma county air, filtered thru' Pacific fog as can only be found in Northern California. It's the only way to retire. I'd probably be more of a cantankerous curmudgeon if I had to live anywhere else ...
"Also does your remote work online? ;)"
If you'd been paying attention, you'd probably grok that the online version is a more automated form of remote. But both are controlled by my wetware. So yes. It does work online. Why do you ask?
61 • @57 the tmp directory (by Jesse on 2010-07-13 13:18:33 GMT from Canada)
I think most distros I've used (at least for any long period of time) have cleaned out the /tmp folder automatically. Either at start-up or via a cron job.
62 • Re: Comparison: Best 2010 Linux desktop for begginers (by Anonymous on 2010-07-13 13:42:44 GMT from Canada)
http://cristalinux.blogspot.com/2010/06/comparison-best-2010-linux-desktop-for.html
Seems to show the warts as well as the good parts
63 • If upgrading every six months seems like too much work (by Murugan on 2010-07-13 15:25:59 GMT from India)
If upgrading every six months is seems like too much work but wants latest software then go for rolling release distribution like archlinux. Upgrading is a breeze in archlinux. No need to reinstall. You can enjoy latest stable softwares without waiting for six months to be included in your distro.
64 • Upgrade vs. clean install (by Greeto on 2010-07-13 15:46:59 GMT from Canada)
I like the Q&A section of this issue of DWW about saving data and upgrade vs. reinstall.
Unfortunately it doesn't say the whole story. Sure, it's easy to save your music or photos. But the most annoying part is customizing default desktop and applications over and over after each clean installation of linux. There are too many programs, which don't store their settings in default places...
65 • @61 • @57 the tmp directory (by Jesse (by meanpt on 2010-07-13 16:51:54 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... after installing and while running the post installation update/upgrade script of CrunchBang XFCE alfa2 , I ran out of /tmp available space :) ...
66 • @Upgrade vs. clean install (by Greeto (by meanpt on 2010-07-13 16:53:19 GMT from Portugal)
"customizing default desktop and applications" ... not to mention the reinstallation of the applications:)
67 • @45 • RE: 34 - 41 (by Landor on 2010-07-12 20:43:23 GMT from Canada) (by meanpt on 2010-07-13 16:58:28 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... thanks Landor ... for the #34 :)
68 • @66 (by Patrick on 2010-07-13 17:10:18 GMT from United States)
In this context I'd like to mention what my N900 phone running Maemo does (and this even is on topic since Meego mentioned in the feature article is partially the offspring of Maemo ;)).
Maemo has a backup program that will save the usual stuff, but also your list of repositories and a list of installed apps. So after an upgrade, when you restore your data, you can also make it reinstall all the programs you had installed before, automatically! I find this a really neat feature and think desktop distros should start to implement a similar system. It shouldn't be too hard--the info is all there, available to your package manager.
69 • mandriva in arstechnica (by forlin on 2010-07-13 17:25:29 GMT from Portugal)
For those who did not catch it, yesterday arstechnica placed an article titled "Mandriva Linux avoids bankruptcy; we test the new version". Together with a short review of Mandriva 2010 Spring, the article has also a brief introduction to Mandriva evolution along the years and some details about how they were able to find the investors who bailed them out.
70 • @57 Separate tmp partiton (by merlin on 2010-07-13 17:54:04 GMT from Canada)
That's the problem with a separate tmp partition, you can easily run out of space if you don't size it large enough. i.e. If your DVD copy program is set to use /tmp then you probably want your tmp folder to be at least 5GB ;-). On the other hand if you make it too big you're wasting valuable disk space. This can be an issue especially if you pay big bucks for an SSD, not so much for traditional rotating hdd's though.
Of course, one of the benefits of partitions is that they can somewhat control file fragmentation on traditional hdd's. i.e. a separate tmp partition guarantees your tmp files don't get intermingled with installed apps and personal files, leaving gaps on the platter when they are erased.
For the average desktop user, I wouldn't bother with a separate tmp partition. Just go with separate root and home partitions (and swap if you must) and be done with it.
Other alternatives are using LVM so you can easily resize tmp if your initial estimates/requirements change.
In my very first Linux install, not knowing any better and staring wide eyed in wonderment at the SUSE partitioner, I went to town...separate root, boot, usr, usr/local, home, opt and swap partitions in an LVM container. As time passed, so did the need to be geekish. Now I only have a root partiton on an SSD. And with SSD's file fragmentation is not really an issue as all areas of the drive are accessed equally fast.
71 • @ 68 • @66 (by Patrick68 • @66 (by Patrick (by meanpt on 2010-07-13 17:55:34 GMT from Portugal)
:) ... does it reinstall firefox extensions and their customized parameters? :):):) ... but you're right, improvements in this area are required :)
72 • @71 (by fernbap on 2010-07-13 18:28:40 GMT from Portugal)
"... does it reinstall firefox extensions and their customized parameters?"
As i keep repeating, as long as you have /home in a separate partition, you can install from scratch and keep your application settings and firefox extensions etc.
This whole issue is a non-issue. Virtually every distro is supported for way more than 6 months and you are not forced to upgrade.
And yes, even if you do not upgrade, most of the applications are kept up-to-date by normal updates. So, don't worry, you will have the latest Firefox that your distro considers stable enough.
If you only upgrade when your current install stops being supported (why would you just give more work to yourself?) you don't have any issue.
In all cases, it beats by far the maintenance tasks you would have to do periodically on windows to prevent it from self-destructing: defraging the disk, updating the virus scanner, cleaning the registry, deleting adware, etc.
73 • @72 • @71 (by fernbap (by meanpt on 2010-07-13 22:11:10 GMT from Portugal)
Thanks, man. But I believe not everything goes on /home. Or does it? If it doesn't, there is room for improvements, where applications and configuration files are stored in a way (maybe partitions) where the new release could grab them and reload them :)
74 • Home, home on the disk (by Jesse on 2010-07-13 22:52:38 GMT from Canada)
Re: 73
Almost everything user-related goes in /home. It's one of the few places on the system where a regular user account has write-access. Your desktop settings, documents, photos, e-mail (in the case of programs like Evolution or Thunderbird), bookmarks, etc are stored in /home.
System wide settings go in /etc and, as someone above pointed out, in some cases data bases will keep things in /var, though that's usually for system-wide data, not so much user-specific data.
So unless your distro makes a big jump in application versions, your settings will come with you through an upgrade/re-install if you keep /home on a separate partition.
75 • the scheduler with the unusual name - BFS - opinions? (by gnomic on 2010-07-13 23:00:00 GMT from New Zealand)
Just wondering whether anybody has a couple of cents worth to offer on the BFS scheduler (http://ck.kolivas.org/patches/bfs/bfs-faq.txt). It's included in a couple of distros - PCLinuxOS and Zenwalk I believe. Anyone think it the greatest thing since the sliced loaf, or another invention of the Dark Lord? I have a feeling its use is accompanied by unusual behaviours on sundry machines here, a lack of stability, but I could be quite wrong.
76 • RE: 67-75 and Meego/Nokia (by Landor on 2010-07-13 23:40:42 GMT from Canada)
#67
You're more than welcome, I hope the brief explanation helped.
#75
I think he's a great kernel hacker and takes the scheduling aspect of the kernel very seriously for Desktop users. Something I don't believe those on the actual kernel team do. That's a no-brainer in my opinion since they're server-enterprise oriented. I will say I haven't tried BFS yet but I intend to one of these days in the not so far off future. :)
Also, you'd be support grass roots, he's from N.Z. I do believe. :)
----
Weeks ago I made a comment about the current OS on high-end Nokia N series phones and now they're working on Meego, making the current branch a dead end. I still believe that but with so much happening surrounding Google and anti-privacy crap (among other reasons), I have to say that I think however late Nokia is coming to this party, they're giving us the only "real open option" for an OS on their Smartphones and we should be supporting them fully, far more than Google and any of their android crap that could easily disappear at a moment's notice.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
77 • BFS scheduler (by Jesse on 2010-07-14 00:32:05 GMT from Canada)
I've used BFS, once during tests with Zenwalk and I used it in another distro too, I think it was Yoper. Honestly, I didn't notice any difference. If someone else were to install a kernel with the default scheduler and another kernel with BFS on a desktop machine and ask me to guess which one was running, I wouldn't be able to tell. I experienced no noticeable performance difference and no instability.
Granted, I don't usually do anything heavily CPU intensive for long periods of time, so any benefit is probably lost on me anyway. If you want some benchmarking data, check out:
http://lwn.net/Articles/351058/
78 • opensuse (by warlux on 2010-07-14 00:51:46 GMT from United States)
After reading the release note from opensuse, im just not understanding the distro....they are telling me , that no matter what distro im using there is no quick why to install mp3 codecs,,,failing to say anything about pclinuxos or kubuntu...with the one its ready to go and with the other its a one click installation,,,,,man ,i would think after the deal with windows ,things would be less complicated...although its really not that bad, but as they put it,( theres more hoops you have to go through to get it.)I can see what windows got out of there deal.But i cant see what novell and opensuse made from it...Please dont think that i dont like opensuse,I think its one of the best out there..thanks..................warlux
79 • RE: 77 (by Landor on 2010-07-14 02:39:46 GMT from Canada)
I forgot about Yoper. :) Actually, the only good comparison for a different scheduler would be from the same kernel version which is then running the same applications, then comparing both. For the version of Yoper I tried (the KDE3 build) I didn't have anything comparable to measure it against (see below).
I've read many times about how conservative the scheduler than Linus chooses, even in a server/enterprise environment, and how it slows down performance. I don't know myself accurately enough to make a clear judgement for any of them but I do know some of the reasoning and comments made at the very least seem sound and came to in an intelligent manner (that I recall).
I'm curious now that we're talking about it as to what performance gains one would have over the other in a scenario I first spoke of with the exact same build right across the board with the only difference being the schedulers. I would think a bare-bones build of a clean system would be the best testbed for it. Maybe Slack or a source system like Gentoo or the like. When I say clean and bare-bones I should clarify I don't mean a console based minimal install, that negates the reasoning behind the BFS. It would have to be a desktop system with X and preferably a DE running on top of it with only a few simple applications installed.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
80 • Schedulers (by jake on 2010-07-14 04:04:48 GMT from United States)
Out of curiosity, I fiddled with the available schedulers when Slackware 13.1 came out. As far as I can tell, for most desktop systems and home servers it makes no difference "seat of the pants" which one you use.
Serious servers are a whole 'nuther kettle of worms ...
As always, YMMV.
81 • How about delta Debs this time (by Observer on 2010-07-14 10:29:02 GMT from Australia)
[i]How about delta Debs this time. Apt-sync?
This has been proposed and deferred for at least two or three releases and is a major bandwidth saver for users on slow or metered connections. The previous thread herewas locked from Lucid being released, so I thought I'd try to get it in here early, since popular changes that aren't implemented are usually blamed on no suggestion during a UDS. So Here. Before the first one. I'd like to see this implemented. We're wasting resources on small changes and creating big, bulky updates. Windows Update has been doing this for ages and it has been implemented for RPMs.
WHO'S COMING WITH ME, MAN!?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1479180
delta debs and apt-sync were approved for discussion at UDS this week.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/Maverick/Planning/UDSBrussels[/i]
I hope this feature gets implemented soon!
82 • file renamer (by Tom on 2010-07-14 10:44:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi :)
Does anyone know a bulk file-renamer i could use in a LiveCd session of Ubuntu? I tried Fedora and openSUSE on this machine but couldn't quite get to a desktop with my boss hovering around.
Sorry this is a cheeky question but i have also posted to linuxquestions.org but i have a deadline to meet!
@Meanpt
I have sometimes had trouble posting to the weekly thread but using a web-browser in linux allows me to back-page and usually my potential-post is there in all it's glory to make me blush and allow me to re-edit. Generally i would recommend doing ctrlA ctrlC before posting to any forum just in case something does go wrong.
Regards from
Tom :)
83 • DE vs WM (by Tom on 2010-07-14 10:50:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi again :)
I really wish there was a site comparable to DW but specifically for WMs & DEs. As far as i can tell a WM contains a lot less than a DE. Usually a DE conatains a WM along with a whole lot of programs such as Gimp, Firefox and stuff. I could easily be wrong though and i am still not completely clear exactly what a WM is as it also seems to be a collection of packages.
Regards from
Tom :)
84 • @82 file renamer (by merlin on 2010-07-14 11:51:09 GMT from Canada)
If you have internet connectivity in the livecd environment, you could download the Thunar file manager - it should pull in the Thunar Bulk Renamer too. Both are from the Xfce desktop.
85 • Thunar (by Tom on 2010-07-14 12:12:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hmm, couldn't find it in Synaptic. This is a very vanillla Ubuntu, no extra repos or anything
86 • Scheduler (by Jesse on 2010-07-14 12:14:05 GMT from Canada)
>> Actually, the only good comparison for a different scheduler would be from the same kernel version which is then running the same applications, then comparing both.
That's one thing I enjoyed about Yoper, they offer several different kernels flavours of the same version, so you can easily swap them in/out. It makes it easy to install and experiment with the same programs and app versions. Again, didn't notice any difference.
87 • Partitioning thoughts and restoring Firefox config (by Michael Raugh on 2010-07-14 13:41:31 GMT from United States)
Something I learned doing the Distro Odyssey is that you can't necessarily just make /home a separate partition and keep reinstalling the main system. Not if you use KDE, anyway. If you do that the KDE install in the new distro will see an existing .kde directory in /home/you and try to use those settings. If there's not much difference between the old distro's KDE and the new it should work fine, but if there is ... well, expect some flakiness in your DE. I haven't used Gnome in a long time so I don't know whether that applies to any DE that's still in development or is purely a KDE issue.
To get around that, I don't make /home a separate partition. Instead I have a partition that I mount at /media/datavol where I store all my data. In /home/mraugh I make symbolic links to /media/datavol/.mozilla-thunderbird, /media/datavol/.mozilla (for Firefox), /media/datavol/download, etc. Makes my life a lot easier, especially if I'm experimenting and want to boot back into an older distro for something -- my current mail, Firefox state, etc. are still being accessed regardless of which distro I boot.
For Firefox, I use an extension called FEBE. It backs up your entire Firefox state -- extensions, saved passwords, URL history, bookmarks, the works -- to a path you designate. If you have to rebuild everything (which has only happened once so far), just install FEBE into your virgin Firefox and then restore everything else from the backup. Works nicely.
-MR
88 • /home (by Tom on 2010-07-14 13:55:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
@ Michael
Yes, if sharing a /home partition between a number of dual-boots or re-installs then it's worth either setting up a different username for each or finding another way of keeping the settings independent of each other. Slightly destroys the benefits of having a /home even if you try a work-around with a shared folder somewhere in there.
Regards from Tom :)
89 • Partitions, DE's & WM's n things (by davemc on 2010-07-14 14:14:54 GMT from United States)
#83 - There is really no need for that. Virtually every project out there has its own website, or collective websites. kde.org, gnome.org, etc.. This is where the rubber meets the road though, because although these projects do usually have quite alot of info, its up to you to sift through it all and figure things out for yourself. You can get fantastic support at ubuntuforums.org, or even some Distro websites like Fedora, Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE, all of which have massive databases filled with useful info. If all else fails, Wikipedia is always there to save the day as well as Google. WM's and DE's play a small, albeit, much more visible role in your OS's overall functionality, and that is why DW focuses on the Distro as a whole instead of one tiny aspect of them.
#87 - Seems to me your creating more work for yourself than any sane person should have to endure. KDE, GNOME, etc.. all have local config files in your /home. So does virtually every major app - Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.. Fixing issues that crop up with KDE after a fresh install is just a $rm ~/.kde away, ie. just delete the .kde file and relog. This works for virtually all the configs. Most folks I know simply delete the .kde file prior to a fresh install to avoid any possible issues anyway.
90 • @89 (by Michael Raugh on 2010-07-14 15:49:34 GMT from United States)
And have to delete .kde every time I boot a different distro? No, thanks. I have better things to do with my time than reconfigure KDE every time I boot.
MR
91 • Changing config (by Jesse on 2010-07-14 16:36:33 GMT from Canada)
@89, 90,
You don't have to delete the .kde (or gnome) directories. You can simply move them, if you're dealing with incompatible installs. If I'm testing a distro and my desktop is messed up, rather than deleting the config file, I move it. For example
mv .kde4 .kde4-backup
Then, if I decide to revert back to the previous install/version, I can simply move it back. No reconfiguration required and it takes a few seconds. It would be a lot more simple to do this whenever something breaks rather than maintain a separate partition with symbolic links.
92 • Configs and stuff (by davemc on 2010-07-14 17:09:17 GMT from United States)
#91 - That way works fine as well. I was thinking that no sane person swaps out a working install more than months or even years each time, but some folks reinstall much more than that, and some boot between double digits of distros daily - not sane to me, but even in that situation your method works just fine as well. Instead of .kde4-backup, you can do .kde4-backup0, .kde4-backup1, .kde4-backup2, etc.. for however many configs that you need to swap between.
93 • @78, openSUSE (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-14 17:30:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Is 11.3 out already, I thought release party was tomorrow. I don't understand all the problems around mp3 codec distribution either, even Slackware plays mp3's out of the box, so much for 'unfriendly and difficult and bare bones'.
In the case of Fedora they are probably concerned about software freedom, with SUSE I don't know. Their system is full of undesirable stuff incl. mono and their own version of Openoffice for better MS compatibility, so I can't see why not distribute mp3 codecs. Kind of illogical. They also used to cripple xine to the point that if you wanted it to play multimedia codecs you had to recompile or get a version from another repository.
I always try to like openSUSE or whatever its name is, but unfortunately no, thanks.
94 • @92 • Configs and stuff (by davemc (by meanpt on 2010-07-14 17:47:45 GMT from Portugal)
"I was thinking that no sane person swaps out a working install more than months or even years each time" ...
:) ... worry not ... at the pace distros are getting heavier, and unless you start switching computers or feeding them with more resources at the same pace, the to be "old" faithfull distro will then turn a into truely valuable asset in your best fit portfolio of OS's :):):)
95 • Re 83: DE vs WM (by rr on 2010-07-14 19:45:53 GMT from United States)
"I really wish there was a site comparable to DW but specifically for WMs & DEs"....
http://xwinman.org/
96 • Galpon MiniNo (by meanpt on 2010-07-14 23:49:32 GMT from Portugal)
Some times the attraction starts with a name and MiniNo in by born language sounds "litle boy" with an african accent. That's right, this time I went to the wating list and ... :) .. those who installed and ran the Debian 5.x know the feeling ... a good and a really snappy one ... fear not those heavy applications cause they're at home with such a small footprint. No, it's still clumbsy (those dual panel don't even match in the applications available), it doesn't compile the virtual box's guest additions, despite the pre-installation of build-essential but for those who don't need it, I would say this is a hell of a two-fifty-sixer. I'll be watching these guys. :)
97 • IMO, openSUSE is a great distro (as good or better as any other in many areas) (by SuseUser on 2010-07-15 02:59:03 GMT from Australia)
93 • @78, openSUSE (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-14 17:30:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Is 11.3 out already, I thought release party was tomorrow. I don't understand all the problems around mp3 codec distribution either, even Slackware plays mp3's out of the box, so much for 'unfriendly and difficult and bare bones'.
In the case of Fedora they are probably concerned about software freedom, with SUSE I don't know. Their system is full of undesirable stuff incl. mono and their own version of Openoffice for better MS compatibility, so I can't see why not distribute mp3 codecs. Kind of illogical. They also used to cripple xine to the point that if you wanted it to play multimedia codecs you had to recompile or get a version from another repository.
I always try to like openSUSE or whatever its name is, but unfortunately no, thanks.
Multimedia Codecs for MP3 and DVD playback are PATENTED and Novell, like Red Hat, amongst other companies with real assets, will not risk a patent liability and does what is legally required to avoid it. Your bitching is nothing more than cheap Novell bashing that some misguided fools engage in at every openSUSE release. This smear is nothing new.
As I have used openSUSE continuously since 10.2 release, I can say that it is a great distro and has worked better on my hardware than any other distro.
Pros: 1. Great system tools via YAST.
2. Dleta rmps for small downloads when updating system (very important for those on quota downloads, e.g. 3G MBB, or on Dialup).
3. Good official documentation with each release.
4. Good forums with experienced users ready to help sort out issues when they arise.
5. A distro backed by a major company is more assurance that it can be trusted on security issues than a garage distro.
6. Lots of software packages, especially updated packages from the OBS repos, e.g. latest Mozzila apps
7. Packman and VLC repos for all multimedia needs.
8. Education repo for education apps
9. 18 mths support for distro releases
10. Support for all major DE (KDE4, Gnome, XFCE and LXDE).
11. KDE3 is still officially supported on openSUSE 11.1 until 31 Dec 2010!
12. DIst-Upgrade via Zypper works well and is officially supported.
Cons: It may not work on (or with) your hardware, as is the case with all distros, and your best options would be to preserver and find a fix/workaround, use another distro that works or forget using linux on that machine or with that hardware.
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide/s for openSUSE 11.0-11.3
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/information-new-users/new-user-how-faq-read-only/407184-multi-media-restricted-format-installation-guide.html
98 • OpenSUSE (by Sly on 2010-07-15 03:03:55 GMT from United States)
After a bit of tweaking, I got SUSE 11.2 set up and working just the way I like it. It's dual booted with another OS, which shall remain nameless, and I installed it using LVM instead of regular partitions. LVM is better than sliced cheese.
I'm looking forward to 11.3, but I'll play around it for a good bit before I decide to install it. One thing I don't particularly like at all in the releases this year is the new version of Amarok that comes with the OS. The app. digressed by taking away a lot of user options.
99 • @59 mandriva One 64 (by glyj on 2010-07-15 09:07:36 GMT from France)
Hi,
There is no 64bits One.
Mandriva made the choice because they didn't have enough manpower to create all isos.
Mandriva One is mainly a live CD, a kind of sample-CD. If we need a 64bit system, we can install a mandriva free 64 and activate the non-free repos.
From my point of view, the free installer is better, it's the same as PowerPack's
regards,
glyj
PS: there was a 64bit 2010.0 One community edition, we could see an update of that project ? who knows ....http://community64.net/
100 • SuseUser (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-15 09:53:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Multimedia Codecs for MP3 and DVD playback are PATENTED and Novell, like Red Hat, amongst other companies with real assets, will not risk a patent liability and does what is legally required to avoid it. Your bitching is nothing more than cheap Novell bashing that some misguided fools engage in at every openSUSE release. This smear is nothing new. "
Thank you for trying to clear that up, although what you stated is quite obvious. The problem is that distros that distribute the mp3 codec in particular could also get sued if there was a good chance of success, and even worse, as they do not have the assets it would drive them into bankruptcy or force them to stop their practice. This has not happened yet. In fact, the issues around including the Fraunhofer codec are far from clear. Apparently some distributors to the end user have taken the stance that the relevant patents expired in 2007, which is roughly when inclusion started.
I point to the relevant Licensing and patent issues sections here:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MP3
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/LAME
Although Fraunhofer Institute has in the past stated that its products need to be licensed and license revenues generated about €100,000,000 (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society), several companies have claimed patent rights and have been suing each other, with injunctions given and just as quickly, on the same day, lifted again. The section on licensing on https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MP3 concludes:
"In short, with Thomson, Fraunhofer IIS,[55] Sisvel (and its U.S. subsidiary Audio MPEG),[56] Texas MP3 Technologies, and Alcatel-Lucent[39] all claiming legal control of relevant MP3 patents related to decoders, the legal status of MP3 remains unclear in countries where those patents are valid."
And in the middle section:
"Additionally, patent holders declined to enforce license fees on free and open source decoders, which allows many free MP3 decoders to develop.[46] Thus, while patent fees have been an issue for companies that attempt to use MP3, they have not meaningfully impacted personal use."
It therefore appears that reimplementations like LAME can be distributed, although
"Distributing compiled binaries of LAME, its libraries, or programs which are derivative works of LAME in countries which recognize those patents, may be considered infringing on the relevant patents.
The LAME developers state that since their code is only released in source code form, it should only be considered as an educational description of an MP3 encoder, and thus does not infringe any patent by itself when released as source code only. At the same time, they advise obtaining a patent license for any relevant technologies that LAME may implement before including a compiled version of the encoder into a product."
This is a far from clear situation, but it also appears that at this stage in time licensing is not enforced any longer. In fact, to the lay person it is not clear which of the patents have expired in 2007 (the last will expire 2017). For all we know it may already be legal to include LAME for the simple purposes of mp3 playback.
As to the rest of your comment, I have found issues that prohibited me from using SUSE (crippled xine) long before Novell entered the scene. It is unfortunate that you have to use this overly defensive language. If openSUSE is your distro of choice, good for you. We all can only use one distro seriously and have to make a choice. SUSE is good but has never been for me.
101 • Codecs in SUSE, again (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-15 11:47:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just to be clear, I did not ask for multimedia codecs for xine to be included. My issue is/was a xine crippled at compile time that would not work even with codecs installed. The official way to get it to work was to remove the shipped xine and replace it with one from another unofficial repository, but this led to dependency problems.
This was around the SUSE 8.x or 9.x series. It's a bit hard to understand the logic behind these decisions when apparently nobody else feels they need to take these steps. This is just one of many small issues which in the end always makes me go back to something else. Since recently the inclusion of mono is another one.
The original post I responded to, which was at the core of my response in #93, are the issues surrounding mp3 playback and nothing else (except the xine issue which I raised as an example of apparently illogical decisions).
102 • Opensuse Codecs (by CJ on 2010-07-15 16:14:35 GMT from United States)
Why all the complaining about Opensuse not including codecs. The reasons are pretty clear, and adding restricted codecs after the fact is a simple "one-click (or three)" operation.
http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/11.3
As a primarily Windows XP user (would switch if OpenOffice writer didn't suck), even I could figure this out.
103 • SUSE Codecs (by Sly on 2010-07-15 16:54:05 GMT from United States)
Good point #102.
Why the whining when there are work arounds. I've always been able to play mp3s and dvds with OpenSUSE. It's just not that hard, and it's not a big deal. Granted it's not as easy as say... Linux Mint.
104 • RE: 87 & openSUSE/Novell (by Landor on 2010-07-15 20:22:16 GMT from Canada)
#87
Unless I missed the point here, I don't understand how creating a symbolic link to the KDE files in another directory is going to help in any way with an incompatible version of KDE. It would still be the same issues, no?
----
I have to agree about openSUSE/Novell crippling software. Ktorrent is another example where they cripple the use of DHT which makes having a broadband connection ultimately useless. Yes, it's legal issues again, but they don't only disable the function (which is the norm for most distributions that I know of) they completely cripple its use. There's two, I wonder if there's more. I'd also like to say I've always liked openSUSE/SUSE from years gone by now, so this isn't coming from someone who doesn't like the distribution to be used as an excuse for whining and such.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
105 • Mp3 issues (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-15 21:47:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
It's not even (for me) about openSUSE specifically, plenty of distros do not provide it and that's fine. Others do though, either via installer link or already installed.
warlux in #78 stated that going by the release notes s/he doesn't understand the problem and why they are stating there is no way for them to provide this, saying
//quote
no matter what distro im using there is no quick why to install mp3 codecs,,,failing to say anything about pclinuxos or kubuntu //end of quote.
Thus for them to suggest there is no way to provide this is plain wrong. Slackware resides in the US where patent law applies and comes with lame in a standard install. Debian I think as well.
I think there is a problem here where some distros are going slightly overboard to be on the safe side, when this may be largely outdated and unnecessary by now in relation to mp3. (See links in #100).
As to other codecs..again, this is a non-issue, it's about the intentional crippling of software. I like my apps and desktops vanilla as the developers intended, and I can't fully trust an entity that gives me crippled functionality.
I could just as well be using Windows instead, what's the point? No offence, but maybe a primarily Windows XP user doesn't understand the problem with this because he is used to having decisions made for him.
And obviously neither RedHat nor Mandriva ever felt the need to cripple some of the software they ship.
Apart from this I've got nothing against SUSE, and Novell also contribute a lot to the community and open source.
I wish all the people who worked hard on 11.3 a happy and successful release party.
106 • MP3 Issues (by CJ on 2010-07-15 22:17:22 GMT from United States)
Novell obviously sees a potential legal issue with providing restricted codecs as do some other mainstream distros. As a U.S. corporation, it probably doesn't want to hassle with lawsuits (understandable). But as indicated in my post, adding the codecs is a one-click installation wizard but yet you continue to ramble on in yet another post how this makes you unhappy.
"No offence, but maybe a primarily Windows XP user doesn't understand the problem with this because he is used to having decisions made for him."
What problem? I was merely commenting on the complaints that opensuse doesn't provide codecs on a standard install and how easy this is to remedy (even for a Windows user). The problem seems to be that you're trying to make a mountain out of a molehill (as the saying goes).
107 • RE: 106 (by Landor on 2010-07-15 22:48:27 GMT from Canada)
Ok, so you're still on the fact that it's easy to install, one click. What he's talking about is more to the point of a piece of software being crippled. That's the issue here.
It's not that easy to replace Ktorrent so it's not crippled. At least it wasn't the last time I looked, though to be honest it was a few years ago. So why does a company like Novell completely cripple such a piece of software when every other company (yes company) that provides a Linux Distribution (some being in the USA, example Red Hat) just have the function disabled but for the user to make their own choice.
I completely agree with him on this, the crippling is senseless, so not whining at all in a discussion, especially in the issue I'm discussing.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
108 • @106 (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-15 23:01:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
"But as indicated in my post, adding the codecs is a one-click installation wizard but yet you continue to ramble on in yet another post how this makes you unhappy."
Hmm, I was simply discussing the multiple facets there are to the legality of including the mp3 codec. It is not about how easy or not it is to add, I know it's trivial.
"What problem? I was merely commenting on the complaints that opensuse doesn't provide codecs on a standard install... "
Classic. Nobody here has complained about openSUSE not providing codec*s* (note the multiple) on a standard install.
I let it rest now so as not to annoy too many readers here! Sorry if I did. G'night.
109 • crippling (by Anonymous on 2010-07-15 23:16:31 GMT from United States)
Hi, I use Debian.
And as far as I poke around in it, crippled software is openly stated in the suspected package's doc directory.
The file is usually the Readme.Debian file.
They usually say pretty much exactly what they removed and why.
So far I have not needed any of those removed features.
Like Mplayer, they removed the DVD decryptor library and provided instructions how to get libdvdcss2 to fix it, go figure....
This looks like they are really trying to be open and honest, a point in their favor.
As far a newbie goes, well, they may not know about the package doc directories or be willing to read them. They would just say: "Its' Broken!" and leave.
Since I do not use a Desktop Enviroment, I have not seen any popups disclaiming a crippled application. They may exist, they could inform newbies about the circumstances, if they did. So I just use a file manager and poke around the doc directory, something some newbies may not do at all.
my 2cents
110 • Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod (slashdot) (by Anonymous on 2010-07-16 02:00:59 GMT from Canada)
So why would anyone trust any droid (netbook, tablet) as an operating system?
111 • Broken Lizard (by 5hady on 2010-07-16 10:15:15 GMT from United States)
Just finished getting openSUSE 11.3 up and running and I'm pretty happy with it. So what is wrong with their KTorrent? Should I just use Deluge like on Fedora?
112 • Symlinks, Droids and OpenSUSE (by Michael Raugh on 2010-07-16 10:49:22 GMT from United States)
@104: "Unless I missed the point here, I don't understand how creating a symbolic link to the KDE files in another directory is going to help in any way with an incompatible version of KDE. It would still be the same issues, no?"
Of course it would. The point of the symlinks is not for KDE but for the other things where I want to use the same data regardless of which distro I booted from -- things like Firefox and Thunderbird and my usual places for storing personal files -- while allowing each distro to have its own (not-symlinked) .kde and other less-portable settings in /home/mraugh.
Make more sense now?
@110: Because the "eFuse" (which is just one character away from "refuse" ... interesting) thing is Motorola's doing, not Google's. So while this may very well discourage those who want full freedom from buying Android phones/tablets/whatever made by Motorola -- at least those equipped with eFuse -- it means nothing for devices made by any other manufacturer.
BTW, I did some reading on this yesterday and while slashdot seems to be in a frenzy cooler heads are also out there saying that while yes, eFuse might make it very difficult or impossible to install custom ROMs on your phone -- at least until clever folk come up with a workaround -- it won't brick the device at the first deviation from factory standard. You can still root a Droid X and tinker a lot within the factory load until then, if you're so inclined.
On OpenSUSE: Been using 11.2 on my work machine since January or so and it's been quite stable. Was happy to get KDE 4.4 as a routine update but it's still on Firefox 3.5(.10). I'll do a zypper dist-upgrade in a week or two and see how well the upgrade process really works.
One complaint with OpenSUSE: the everyday management tools, yast and zypper, are still abysmally slow compared to apt-get and yum. And RHEL users know how slow yum is, so that's saying something!
Have a fun weekend, all.
MR
113 • RE:110 (by Anonymous on 2010-07-16 13:23:03 GMT from Canada)
thanks for replying
In my ignorance of programming I was thinking that if some programmer at Motorola could alter Googles os , the some other programmer (hacker?) could also.
I presume that you are saying that this is not possible
Thanks
114 • Re: 113 (by Michael Raugh on 2010-07-16 14:25:05 GMT from United States)
Of course it's possible for another manufacturer to do an encrypted boot loader as Motorola is doing. But they can't do it without it being noticed, and people will raise a stink about it as they are doing with Motorola. Those who want the total freedom to load custom ROMs will vote with their wallets.
MR
115 • RE - 77 • BFS scheduler (by Jesse on 2010-07-14 00:32:05 GMT from Canada) (by Raoul on 2010-07-16 16:30:27 GMT from France)
77 • BFS scheduler (by Jesse on 2010-07-14 00:32:05 GMT from Canada)
"I've used BFS, once during tests with Zenwalk"
Can we expect some kind of review ?
What your opinion about Zenwalk 6.2 ?
Raoul
116 • Zenwalk (by Jesse on 2010-07-16 18:00:27 GMT from Canada)
Re: 115 Zenwalk,
I have done a review of Zenwalk and, all going well, it will appear in Monday's edition of DWW.
117 • @116 • Zenwalk (by Jesse (by meanpt on 2010-07-16 19:11:23 GMT from Portugal)
:) hope you'll test it, also and as usually, in a VM ... please, don't forget to compile the guest additions ... and check if the automatic screen adjustment works :) ...
118 • Crippled xine-libs (by Barnabyh on 2010-07-16 19:28:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sorry to be a pain this week, but here's the proof in the pudding and that I'm not on drugs and hallucinating (the post was made yesterday on http://www.linux2u.co.cc/2010/07/opensuse-offline-codec-installer.html and pertains to all 11.xversions):
"OpenSuse Offline Codec Installer:Linux2u
If you don't have working Linux supported Internet connection and want to install Codecs on your OpenSuse Desktop then visit any cybercafe download these files and take to your PC. First remove xinelib just using Yast Software management and install these files ,and you will get rich multimedia experience.
Remember Xine engine used in OpenSuse for multimedia purpose but due to legal restriction Opensuse included a *restricted Version of xine that can only play ogg files* .So first remove this limited version of Xine."
119 • @87, 98; MP3 support in OpenSuse 11.3 (by cba on 2010-07-16 19:36:51 GMT from Germany)
OpenSuse 11.3 comes with the Fluendo mp3 plugin, which is available in the non-oss-repository. This plugin will be installed during the first time the Yast package management is started by the user. The mp3-codec installation is triggered by a package called "pullin-fluendo-mp3-11.3-2.1.noarch.rpm". Other packages of these type are "pullin-msttf-fonts-11.3-1.2.noarch.rpm" and "pullin-flash-player-11.3-1.2.i586.rpm".
So, at first OpenSuse 11.3 is installed with free software only (including these "pullin"-packages), but after this, OpenSuse 11.3 almost automatically installs mp3, flash and MS truetype fonts support.
120 • RE: 111 - 112 (by Landor on 2010-07-16 20:39:30 GMT from Canada)
#111
I would imagine that the use of DHT (maybe even PEX (Peer Exchange) is crippled by default in any openSUSE/Novell application. There's workarounds for getting a version that's not crippled via some repositories.
Here's a link to some info on how to get it. There might be better out there, this was a quick look:
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-help-here/pre-release-beta/397469-source-repo.html#post1883632
#112
Yes, a lot more sense. My apologies, I just didn't see where you were going with the whole thing. :)
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
121 • @105 (by Adam Williamson on 2010-07-16 21:00:58 GMT from Canada)
Actually, RH and Fedora do not include any MP3 decoding functionality; apps which use non-licensed MP3 decoders simply aren't included in RH/Fedora packages. Mplayer, fr'instance, is in RPM Fusion, not Fedora or RH.
Mandriva does indeed include MP3 decoding. They've always done it on the basis that 'hey, no-one sued us yet, it'll be fiiiine'. So far they've been right =)
122 • mp3 decoding (by Jesse on 2010-07-16 22:47:59 GMT from Canada)
@121
Mandriva (which ships versions of their OS with and without mp3 decoding) is also based out of France. Their patent laws are a little different over there, which probably puts them in a better legal situation. There's also a chance that Mandriva has purchased a license to distribute mp3 support as the license doesn't cost that much. (I don't know if they have, but it's an options.) It would be expensive and difficult for an American company to sue Mandriva when there are riper targets in the USA which are being ignored.
123 • openSUSE (by Jesse on 2010-07-17 13:05:41 GMT from Canada)
Sorry for the double post, but some people have brought up limitations in openSUSE in regards to codecs and bittorrent. Those issues have been addressed in the latest, 11.3, release.
http://wiki.opensuse.org/Product_highlights
124 • Madriva, codec distribution (by Caitlyn Martin on 2010-07-17 18:34:23 GMT from United States)
Re: the earlier discussion about Mandriva One issues, I have always had better results with Mandriva Free. I haven't had time to try the newest version yet but, in general, I've found Mandriva the best choice for newcomers to Linux. I'm hoping this version is a good one. We need some good Mandriva news for a change.
Regarding OpenSUSE, Debian, "crippled software" and codecs, I agree with those who say U.S. based distros have no choice in the matter. There definitely is a possibility of legal liability. Just because the consortium that controls the license and rights to mp3 has chosen not to enforce their copyrights or patents at this time doesn't mean they won't in the future. Similarly, including libdvdcss is a legal problem.
Regarding newcomers, the best way to start with Linux is the same way most people get Windows: preinstalled on a system. Dell and HP, for example, include the Fluendo codecs on the systems with Linux preinstalled, which means users who go that route with those vendors have no problem out of the box.
125 • So... (by Anonymous on 2010-07-17 23:20:38 GMT from United States)
After reading all of this banter.
Linux really needs to have fully functioning multi-media functionality or people will leave in droves to where it can be had.
And this stuff better work right out of the box, since no one seems willing to add it manually either. (or learn about it for that matter)
spoon-fed? eh?
126 • @125 - Codecs (by fernbap on 2010-07-18 01:35:32 GMT from Portugal)
yea, i guess your only experience with Linux is live CDs...
Then, if you can't play a mp3 from the live CD, you say linux sucks.
Let me invite you to the following experience: Start a windows live CD and check if you can play mp3 from it.
Oh! I forgot! Windows never managed to make a live CD...
127 • RE: Soo.......... (by Anonymous on 2010-07-18 01:59:46 GMT from United States)
I think all that spoon fed stuff depends very much on the distro you chose, both Linux Mint and PCLinuxOS have full media functionality out of the box and are designed to be "noob friendly"; however, there are certainly still distros around like Arch & Slackware in which virtually everything is done manually by the true old school 'power user' Linux nerds that once dominated the Linux landscape. One glance over a comment forum hardly gives a true picture of the entire Linux/open source Unix clone universe. I would say however that I think the majority of all computer users want things to 'just work' with out any hassle, Mac users are certainly willing to over pay for computers with that reputation so is it really any surprise that Linux is so different? The Linux community is a hodgepodge of different groups ranging from casual hobbyists to true tinkerers and as easy to use distros came out the casual hobbyists who didn't have quite the skills of the older tinkerers came to be the dominant user group. I'll admit that I'm a casual hobbyist and I'll go for what ever seems easiest to me, I do after all have Vista which 'just works' for me and would rather do other things than compile from scratch, but give me a free, secure, easy to use alternative to MS and I'll try it. If you want to find power users go find a forum for Linux From Scratch and stop knocking more casual users in these generic forums.
128 • 126 (by Anonymous on 2010-07-18 02:03:17 GMT from United States)
Windows does not have an official livecd, but there is Bart PE Builder and there's ERD Commander :)
Still, I agree with you :)
for 125
There are no perfect systems out there :(, yes you will have distros having more than others when it comes to multimedia/codecs/mp3/etc Still one can add missing pieces on whichever distro you use very much. Why complain?
Remember that Burger King does not make Operating Systems :)
Why?
Because you would get it your way :), you have to get it their way and then add whatever you want to it, like side orders :)
129 • Re: 127 (by jake on 2010-07-18 07:57:11 GMT from United States)
"I think all that spoon fed stuff depends very much on the distro you chose"
Nah. It all depends on the wetware behind the OS installer.
Funny story about my Great Aunt ... I brought her a Slackware box after spending four weekends in a row cleaning up malware on her XP system. She refused to use it, because it was "too hard to make a change at my age". Several weeks later, I realized that I hadn't had any support calls from her. I called to see what was up. It turned out that her sister in Finland had sent her some pictures right about the time that the XP box crapped out again. Out of desperation, she booted up the Slack box ... and hasn't looked back. Several months later, she asked me to "get rid of that old thing", pointing at the now working again XP box. I couldn't convince her that I could install the same version of Slack on it, with it's more modern CPU, more RAM, larger harddrive, etc. To her, the OS+hardware were a lemon that couldn't be fixed. She's a Linux advocate now, in her "over 90" club ... but unfortunately, she calls it "the version of windows that my nephew gave me".
130 • Upgrading existing Nokia phone with MeeGo/Maemo? (by FTSE Dividend on 2010-07-18 12:31:28 GMT from Netherlands)
Does anyone know if it is (or will be) possible to upgrade an existing Nokia smartphone using S60v3 (=Symbian OS) with MeeGo/Maemo?
Or maybe a newer version of the Symbian OS?
131 • Netrunner (by kc1di on 2010-07-18 12:55:39 GMT from United States)
I just downloaded and gave Netrunner a go.
It installed quickly and everything works out of the box including HDMI to my TV. that had giving me a bit of trouble in other distros.
only thing that did not work was my wireless card but that was only a download and install of the correct driver using their hardware driver app. All in all I'm well pleased with this Ubuntu base desktop on my laptop.
Look forward to seeing how fast they gain in popularity.
The developers did a good Job. and all the codecs are available from the start.
132 • re: 130 (by beany on 2010-07-18 17:30:12 GMT from United States)
I have a n900 with Maemo and was hoping to be able to officially upgrade to MeeGo, but according to Nokia that is not an option. At this point it is up to the hackers to provide that possibility. I'm doubting that an official change from Symbian to MeeGo is planned as well. Don't get me wrong I love my Maemo and n900...MeeGo just seems a bit sexier.
133 • RE:126 (by Anonymous on 2010-07-18 22:53:16 GMT from United States)
My #125 post was an observation of the many other posts here recently.
I personally have cut my teeth on Slackware Linux using floppies on a 386SX.
I have never looked back since then.
Perhaps you misunderstood me or used the wrong pronouns.
I merely stated what I have read here as the supposedly newbies to Linux have posted.
If multi-media is not ready without fiddling around with the OS, most seem to consider this a big turn-off.
As I am still a Linux user today, you know that I don't cower from inspecting kernel code or modules to find the most appropriate one to use.
Trial and error doesn't really hurt much either.
The command line is your friend, the desktop is a playground.
Thanks for your reply, and lets not let the newbs get discouraged.
Number of Comments: 133
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| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Full list of all issues |
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JoLinux
JoLinux was a Brazilian desktop Linux distribution for x86_64 platforms based on Slackware Linux.
Status: Discontinued
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